The whole system makes a lot more sense if you imagine it through the belief in the “white man’s burden” at the time - it was the white man’s responsibility to educate and assimilate “inferior” cultures into the “superior” Western system. Not to excuse the damage done, but the people doing these things felt like it was their moral responsibility - if they didn’t do it, these cultures would forever be stuck in their inferior ways.

That attitude hasn’t disappeared.